Richmond Free WiFi Blog

Justin got the longer string of Ethernet cable in, allowing him to move our first gateway to his balcony which covers the area surrounding 2000 W. Grace St. This should allow coverage of several blocks. Each additional node that connects to this gateway will help expand the RFW mesh network all the more.

More info, including pictures, may be seen via this link:

http://www.richmondfreewifi.org/doku.php?id=nodepics:2000wgracest

Anyone interested in hosting a gateway (i.e. sharing your Internet connection with your neighbors and expanding the mesh) as well as hosting a nearby node (i.e. having connectivity to a gateway and expanding the mesh) may request more info via our feedback form and discussion forums.

Thanks for helping us expand, Justin!

Special thanks to John Murden for generously donating banner space on his Church Hill People’s News (CHPN) website for the RFW project!

We wholeheartedly support John’s and the entire RVA News Blog community, many of them aggregated at RVABlogs,  for their tireless efforts and community involvement.  We’re working on a page we hope to attached to our network splash page in a few weeks that will be dedicated to the RVA News Blog community as well as our other supporters.

Thanks again, John!  Keep up the excellent work!

We are thrilled to announce the release of our first gateway, located at the block of 2000 W. Grace St. Special thanks to Justin Painter for generously donating a portion of his high-speed Internet connection. This gateway will eventually be mounted on a balcony to allow for effective outside coverage, covering a range of several blocks. Additional Meraki units may be added as “nodes” to help expand the mesh network throughout the Fan area.

The following image shows real-time specs of the node’s uptime:

Node name: O-O-2000 W Grace St-001

To access this node, simply point your wireless configuration to “RichmondFreeWireless”, open your web browser click the link on the splash page to continue and you’re on the web!

If you’d like to expand the network from this node or even set up a gateway with your connection to share throughout your neighborhood, feel free to check out our “help expand the network” page.

We’re please to announce the launch of our new discussion forum, in categorized format, at our parent company, The Virginia WiFi Company’s forum. We receive many excellent questions and feel this medium will best serve interested parties, our volunteers and anyone interested in our initiative.

Feel free to visit our discussion forum at http://forums.vawifico.org/ to join in on the conversations today!

Special thanks to Richard Sebastian for tagging us via the Richmond.com article. Richard’s blog is very inspiring, particularly to those in the educational arena who utilize technology in their curricula. One may actually get a change to watch Richard work on his dissertation via his ustream.tv broadcast.

We found Richard’s comment regarding the educational implications of our project particularly interesting and insightful.

The educational implications of this project are especially exciting. Free wireless, especially in and around poorer communities, is yet another way to provide lower-income students with much needed access the Internet.

Thanks, Richard, for your kind words and encouragement!